The invention generally relates to improving a caller experience in connection with a Voiceover Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. More specifically, the invention relates to deriving information from call detail records generated in the course of providing the service and providing predictive maintenance based on the information derived from the call detail records.
As the telecommunications industry has evolved over time, telephony services have been offered over different media. For the longest time, telephony services were offered over a network referred to as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). In today's Internet dominated communications world, there has been a migration to provide telephony capabilities over the Internet. This capability, referred to as Voice Over Internet Protocol or VoIP is growing in acceptance. A key aspect of the continued acceptance of VoIP as a plausible alternative to time tested telecommunications services is the assurance that the quality of service associated with the VoIP service will at least come close to, if not match, the quality of service metrics that are presently expected with regard to PSTN-based telephony services.
In the VoIP telecommunications domain, a number of errors may occur in connection with the provisioning of services (it is important for the service provider to detect actual faults or failures as quickly as possible.) It would also be beneficial, if at all possible, to act proactively with regard to certain issues within the network when traits or characteristics or metrics related to the quality of service indicate a trend to a need for maintenance prior to the occurrence of a failure which could be catastrophic.
In the VoIP arrangements that are known, call detail records are generated in connection with calls that are initiated on the network. These call detail records include various pieces of information regarding the call, including metrics which might be deemed to be related to the quality of the service associated with the given call. It would be beneficial if there was provided a system for harvesting the quality of service metrics which are available so as to enhance the predictive maintenance of the VoIP network.